


1989-2015

by kusege



Series: The MCU (Musical Crossover Universe) [1]
Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz, Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson, Heathers: The Musical - Murphy & O'Keefe
Genre: 7-Elevens, Adoption, But also not, Canon Divergence, Forging Documents, Gen, Hitchhiking, Illegal Activities, Immortality, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Inspired because Will Roland is Jeremy in the off-broadway show, The ultimate crossover evernt, This isn’t an actual fic there’s just a lot of bulletpoints, Timeskips, brief nudity, i tried to keep the numbers right but if they aren’t just yell at me, its good I promise, okay actual tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-16
Updated: 2018-04-16
Packaged: 2019-04-23 14:06:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14334066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kusege/pseuds/kusege
Summary: He’s been alive a long time.





	1. J.D.

There are very few things that can kill an Immortal.  
Some diseases, some metals, some rituals, some suicides.  
Immortals have a very high healing factor, though.  
If they slit their wrists with a normal knife, the cuts will heal.  
If they are shot with a normal gun, the bullet will not do any permanent damage.  
If they are blown up, as long as the bomb does not contain any Immortal-toxic materials, they will heal.  
But I digress.  
The year is 1989.  
People are talking, worrying, healing, in the rubble of a place destroyed by a bomb.  
(Someone’s apparent corpse is healing on the ground.)  
(No one is looking, though)  
When the young Immortal comes to, everyone has left, and some people are off talking to the police.  
His healing was not perfect, he has brain damage now, the shockwave from a bomb exploding on his chest too much pressure on his gelatinous brain.   
(The human brain isn’t made to heal anyways)  
He is scared when he wakes up, he scrambles away, he rushes home, hands shaking, completely naked.  
He goes home by the back way, so no one will see him.  
His father, also an Immortal, is furious with him.  
His response isn’t nearly what his father was expecting.  
The young Immortal has lost his bravado, his cockiness, his unkillable attitude.  
He is now self-conscious, anxious, nervous.  
His father is disappointed in this new son.  
“I’m going to go get drunk. You get out of my house or bring my son back,” he says.  
The young Immortal watches his father leave.  
He doesn’t know where to go, not anymore.  
He had a plan for if he got kicked out, but she hates him now, and besides, now everyone thinks he’s dead.  
He runs upstairs to his room, grabs some clothes.  
He leaves behind a trench coat, it’s too recognizable.  
He hurriedly bleaches his hair, trying to get rid of the black dye he’s been using for years.  
His dog tags were left on Veronica’s porch, a symbol of respect since he thought she was dead, his stashes of money and a few changes of clothes are shoved into a duffel bag.  
He also grabs some alcohol and his binder, dictating his 53 years as an Immortal.  
(He is a very young Immortal)  
He pulls on his pair of running shoes and sets off for the highway.  
(His motorbike would be too suspicious, he’s supposed to be dead, so he walks)  
When he gets there, he starts trying to hitchhike.  
It’s about 45 minutes before someone finally pulls over for him, a woman and her boyfriend and their big bulldog.  
“What’s your name?” she asks him.  
“J-“ He panics, he starts to answer as he always has, but stops halfway through.   
“Jay?” she asks.  
He looks up at her and nods, a bit skeptical  
“Why you out here, Jay?”  
“... Dad didn’t want me at home anymore,” he answers.   
(It’s not a lie)  
Her face softens and she gestures to the backseat. “We’re heading to West Virginia. That good for you?”  
He nods again, and gets in.  
Over the next 4 hours, he learns that the woman is named Ashley and her boyfriend is named Christopher and their dog is named Buckles.  
He learns that she is studying to be a psychologist and that he builds houses and that Buckles once chased a squirrel and ran facefirst into a fence.  
He learns that they met at a house party and realises that those parties may not be as toxic as he thought.  
They drop him off in a semi-large town in West Virginia before driving off to the small town where Christopher’s parents live.   
(Ashley’s don’t want to see her anymore.)  
She gives him a blue cardigan before she drives away. It will be winter soon, and he didn’t grab a coat.  
The newly named Jay is now alone.


	2. Jay

The year is 2008  
For the last 19 years, Jay has been hitchhiking and living in shady motels and jumping from state to state in the northeastern US  
His black hair dye has long since faded out, leaving his hair to grow its natural shade of brown, slightly curly.  
His brain damage has set in now, for good. He is not cocky, he is anxious, he is nerdy, he is not aggressive, he can barely remember the events of Ohio, 1989.  
(He’s looked it up, but there’s nearly nothing online about it now.)  
(He knows that Veronica Sawyer graduated Harvard with a law degree in 1998)  
(He knows that four ~~three~~ people died)  
(He knows that their deaths are his fault, but he can’t for the life of him remember exactly how.)  
He has bought a small laptop and has been using it to talk to people online about new video games and debate which are better.  
(There is one person, who’s probably about 10 now, who he has been talking to for four or five years. Their username is MellowYellow and they agree with him that Pac-Man is superior to Centipede in every way.)  
(There’s another person, who just agrees with everything everyone says. Their username is random numbers and they seem very nervous.)  
He has not been to a school in years, he has no access to fake papers.  
He still has money, but it’s mostly from hustling pool and winning bets. He doesn’t have a job.  
He is living on the outskirts of NYC now, trying to figure out his next steps.  
He is standing in a 7-Eleven, grabbing a blue slushie, when they enter.  
A nearly impossibly beautiful woman who looks to be in her late twenties and a man who is holding her hand, who is not nearly as beautiful.  
Jay’s instincts draw him to her.   
Duffel bag with all his possessions over his shoulder, wearing the cardigan he was given years ago, he approaches the couple, and quietly greets the woman in the language of the Immortals.  
She starts, and responds in kind.  
Her husband watches on in confusion.  
 _I have a long story to tell you, but I am badly in need of a favor_ , he says.  
 _I’m curious_ , she responds. _Do you swear you mean us no harm?_  
He swears he doesn’t in the tongue of the Immortals, which cannot be lied in. She nods, and invites him into their car.  
When he’s there, he explains.  
He was kicked out of his house after he pissed off his father years ago. He has no papers, he can’t be a normal person. He doesn’t know where to turn.   
“All I want,” he says, telling both of them this, “is a new start at a new school, with a new name… and a new family.”  
The man looks a bit confused by this request. The woman nods, she knows how it is for Immortals, who must act like normal people out of fear of being targeted by the government or crazy people.  
“We can do that, I think,” she says. “I’m in the process of starting over myself. It will probably take us a few years to find a good place to settle in. Do you have any ideas?”  
“Now hold on a moment,” the man says, but she cuts him off.  
“You said you wanted a son, Sammy, and I told you I can’t have one, so we’ll have to adopt.”   
(She is lying, she can have children, she just doesn’t want to with him.)  
“This young man seems like a good child.”  
He looks back at Jay, contemplating.  
“What’s your name, son?” he asks.  
“... Jay, but I don’t like it much,” he answers.  
The man thinks for a minute.  
“How do you like the name Jeremy?” he asks.  
The young Immortal thinks to himself, running the name over in his mind.  
“.. I like it,” he says, finally. “I like it a lot.”


	3. Jeremy

It takes three years for them to find a place in New Jersey where Jeremy and his new mother, Elizabeth, can slip in unnoticed, fake documents passing inspection.  
Until then, they live in slightly nicer hotels, Jeremy’s mom earning money that none of them question the source of.  
(Well, not after she half-knocks out Jeremy with a punch when he asks one too many times)  
He stays in touch with MellowYellow, and their friendship grows. He learns his real name- Michael- and feels safe enough to tell him that his name is Jeremy.  
(He’s also still talking to the other one, who now only uses Skype and is rarely online and whose username is Quercus alba, which he learns is a kind of tree. They get pretty close too, bonding over anxiety.)  
(Jeremy suspects he’s an Immortal too, but never says anything.)  
Michael lives in one of the towns that Jeremy’s parents were looking into, and Jeremy manages to convince them to choose that one.  
Michael is 13 when Jeremy moves to town, and, even though his last fake age was 17, he convinces Elizabeth to advertise him as a very tall 13 year old.  
They are in the same grade now, and grow even closer.  
They bond over anxiety and being outcasts and their affinity for 7-Elevens and vintage video games.  
(Sometimes Jeremy is reminded of the last time he bonded with someone over something like this. He has to convince himself that nothing will go wrong this time.)  
(Besides, it’s not like he and Michael are dating.)  
The year is 2010, and then it isn’t.  
The year is now 2015.  
(His mother left a year ago, saying she was sick of having such a weak family, such a hopeless son.)  
(Jeremy doesn’t know why every Immortal parent wants their child to be a badass, but that’s how things seem to be all the time.)  
Jeremy is starting his junior year at high school, and he can’t stop thinking about the last time he was 17.  
But nothing will go wrong this time.  
He is being bullied by two jock-y boys who run the school and there are three girls who love to mock him and there is one girl who he knows he would be close to, if he could just get her attention.  
But it’s not the same, because now he has Michael.  
He doesn’t want to be the hero, coming in on horseback to save the day, he doesn’t want to stand out, to fight.  
He just wants to blend in, to stay in the line, and even though he’s sure 27-years-ago him would have hated him now, he just wants to give in to the world and _survive_.  
(His attempts to fight didn’t go well.)  
Besides, now he has Michael to be a loser with.  
Everything is fine, until one of his bullies corners him in a bathroom and offers him a ticket to the top of the social ladder.  
God, it’s enticing, he’s being tempted with power he doesn’t trust himself to have, but it’d be so good for him, and Michael, they wouldn’t be outcasts anymore…  
Michael tells him to wait, and everything will be okay, but he’s never been good at waiting.  
It sounds almost impossible, but if there’s a chance…  
It hurts, a lot, but not as much as dying did.  
And then he remembers _everything_.  
The voice in his head is incredibly confused, it’s dealing with a lot of data.  
And so is Jeremy, Jay, JD, because he remembers everything he did all those years ago in 1989, and _how could he have done that?_  
The voice, his SQUIP, on the other hand, loves it.  
“ _We just have to channel that same energy, that same feeling, into being with society, and you’ll be cool in no time_ ,” it says.  
He’s sort of with it, sort of regretting it, he doesn’t know how to feel.  
There is something good about it, though, it’s helping him move past the brain damage and regain his confidence, control his anxiety.  
It’s when it’s forcing him to leave behind Michael that he’s the most unsure, but hey, he did it alone last time, right?  
“Optic nerve blocking: on.”  
He’s more of a bad-boy cool than he might have been otherwise, but he’s still cool, still getting better, still getting shocked, still going to a Halloween party with a girl he doesn’t even like.  
He punches Michael out of the way, in the bathroom, after calling him a loser. It was just instinct.  
It’s when the house is set on fire that he realizes he’s done it again, gotten in another damn disaster in highschool, how does he keep doing this?  
His SQUIP forces him not to think about it, and Jeremy realizes it’s manipulating him a bit too late.  
But then Michael is there.  
As he jumps in to save the day, Jeremy remembers someone else, confronting him at a school-sponsored event to stop him from ruining everything.  
God, does he still miss Veronica?  
About 6 minutes later, everything is resolved, and he’s screaming, fuck, this hurt more than dying did, how will he _survive_?  
But he does, and he wakes up in the hospital.  
(His healing factor doesn’t handle the electric shock scars, they’ll stay with him.)  
He and his dad agree, they have to get out before anyone looks too deeply into this.  
His dad calls the people who got Jeremy his fake papers last time and starts looking into communities they can escape into.  
Jeremy tells Michael that he’s going to move away and he’ll stay in touch (he does), tells Christine that he loves her (he doesn’t,) and looks up a phone number online.  
“Sawyer Law Consultants, how can I help you?”  
He hangs up, he’s too nervous.  
His father, while they’re still in New Jersey, meets a woman who says she’s also planning on moving somewhere else and she has a place picked out, and that she doesn’t want to be alone.  
It’s a marriage of convenience, and when Jeremy’s story is told, and she agrees she’ll help him.  
She says there’s a kid living near where they’re going to move, and if Jeremy is willing to start over next year, they can spend their senior year together.  
“Besides,” she says, “Evan needs a friend.”  
It’s the night before they leave, and Jeremy is scrolling through a name site. Tomorrow, they’re putting everything in place, he just needs a new first name.  
(His father took his new mom’s last name when they married.)  
He really wants to keep the J thing going…  
Hey, “Jared” isn’t too bad.


	4. Jared

His new mom finds out he needs glasses.  
Evan turns out to be Quercus alba from Skype.  
Jared’s not surprised to find that he’s just as anxious in real life.  
(Thank god he never gave Evan his name when he was Jeremy, that would take some explaining.)  
(Evan is not an Immortal.)  
He’s out of practice with making friends, he starts taking after Michael, teasing Evan, but they aren’t close enough, and Evan mentions to his mother that Jared is mean to him.  
His mother tells him to lay off Evan, or she won’t pay for his car insurance.  
The SQUIP never really left, and occasionally it will tell Jared to cut Evan down and leave him, try to become dominant in this new school.  
Jared has about 10 bottles of Mountain Dew Red under his bed that he takes small sips of when he has to.  
Still though, things slip out.  
He doesn’t see Evan much over the summer. He’s too busy fighting with this weird Connor kid over the 7-Eleven slushie machine to think much about him anyways.  
It turns into a goddamn war over this machine, and Connor winds up trashing his room and stealing his weed and mocking him online for having all that soda, and Jared gets so pissed off he responds by taking one of Connor’s hoodies and setting it on fire.  
He considers doing what he did in 1989 again, but no, he’s got a chance, he just has to get through one more damn year…  
(Connor reminds him a lot of his younger self, if he thinks about it. Angry, hoodie instead of a trench coat, a rebel whose family hates him or just doesn’t care.)  
(He’s never been very good at empathy, though.)  
(Well, briefly, when he was Jay, when he was Jeremy before junior year, when he hadn’t had his brain damage fixed.)  
(Sometimes he wishes the SQUIP hadn’t fixed that.)  
He doesn’t regret anything, yet.  
Evan comes to school next year with a broken arm, and Jared shrugs it off.  
He preemptively confronts Connor in the hallway.  
He doesn’t regret anything for 3 more days.  
Connor is dead now.  
Jared panics, but he suppresses it quickly, he has to ensure that nothing else goes wrong.  
Of course, Evan is suddenly Connor’s best friend, and Jared has to help him lie about emails.  
(He calls up Michael for help, he’s always been more tech-savvy, Jared is almost 85 now, he didn’t grow up with this.)  
(He has to be Jeremy again with Michael.)  
Things continue to spiral, and Jared is the only one who knows the truth, that no secret friendship existed, that Connor and Evan were never really friends.  
He could bring this all down.  
Maybe he should, Evan is getting all these things he doesn’t deserve, but good things are coming from it anyways…  
But Evan is deserting him for this.  
(He asks Michael, and Michael laughs at him.)  
(“What?” he asks)  
(“Sorry, I just… never thought you’d be on the receiving end of junior year.”)  
(Jared feels like garbage.)  
(If he thinks about it, he’s actually been on all three sides of the story now.)  
(He’s been the protagonist, when he was Jeremy.)  
(He’s been the side character, he is the side character right now.)  
(... and he’s been the antagonist, in 1989.)  
He turns out not to have to say anything, though. Evan tells the Murphys and they all agree to keep it a secret.   
The Connor Project grows.  
Jared gets to graduate and move on with his life.  
… and then he gets a phone call.  
It’s Michael.  
“Why the fuck is your name suddenly Jared Kleinman?”  
Jared doesn’t know what to do… except tell the truth.  
But he can’t do this over the phone.  
He drives down to New Jersey again.  
He and Michael meet at the 7-Eleven they always went to after school, and walk to a nearby park.  
Jared swears him to secrecy and pulls out his binder.  
All 83 years of his life are in there, and he can’t have anything spilling to the police.  
Michael is horrified when he reaches 1989, as Jared knew he would be.  
They’re somehow still friends afterwards, though.   
They say they’ll keep in touch, and then Michael tells him to wait for a minute.  
Jared watches as he walks away, calls someone on his phone.  
(He really hopes it’s not the police.)  
He comes back, holding out the phone.  
Jared takes it.  
“Hello?”  
“Is this some kind of sick joke?”  
He nearly cries. Her voice is still beautiful, even as she’s aged, she’s, what, 43?  
“Did you ever pick up my dog tags? I left them on your porch.”  
“No, I burned them.”  
He laughs. “I sort of expected that.”  
“Immortal, huh? No wonder we never found your body.”  
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to contact you again.”  
“...What did you want then.”  
“I just wanted to say goodbye, Veronica.”  
She has no response.  
“Goodbye, Veronica.”  
He hangs up the phone and sobs into Michael’s chest.  
The next day, he leaves town again.  
He has a life to live.


End file.
